Optical polarimetric measurement of surface acoustic waves

A surface acoustic wave (SAW) is utilized in diverse fields ranging from physics, engineering, to biology for transducing, sensing, and processing various signals. Optical measurement of the SAW provides valuable information since amplitude phase displacement field can be measured locally with resolution limited by spot size optical beam. So far, techniques rely on modulation path, phase, or diffraction associated SAWs. Here, we demonstrate that SAWs an polarimeter. We show slope periodically tilting due coherently driven translated into angle polarization rotation, which straightforwardly calibrated when polarimeters work shot-noise-limited regime. The polarimetric is, thus, beneficial quantitative studies SAW-based technologies.